1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and a system for improving the efficiency of issuing tickets and, more specifically, a method and system for issuing non-refundable tickets for a customer wishing to exchange his or her existing ticket for a new ticket.
2. Background
Travel agencies have been and are the prime distribution outlets for airline tickets. Currently, travel agencies distribute approximately 70% of all airline tickets sales in the United States. In calendar year 2000, travel agencies made approximately $80 billion in gross sales from issuing over 195 million airline tickets. In the calendar year 2001, travel agencies issued approximately $70 billion in airline tickets, with the decrease largely due to the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001.
There are two different types of airline tickets issued in the airline industry: fully refundable tickets and non-refundable tickets. Travel agencies, on behalf of their clients, may refund fully-refundable tickets without any airline fee imposed. This is not the case for non-refundable tickets, however. Instead, the same passenger can use non-refundable tickets for future travel on the same airline, but airlines currently charge a change fee of about $100 to change such tickets.
Travel agencies issue airline tickets and report sales of tickets and remit payments on a weekly reporting cycle (e.g., Mon–Sun) to the Airline Reporting Corporation (“ARC”), a company that is wholly-owned by the member airlines. ARC was organized by the airlines for the sole purpose of controlling, regulating, and administering travel agency sales of their product. ARC operates to ensure that all ticket sales are properly reported and paid for by the approximately 24,000 travel agencies in the United States. Currently, travel agencies submit their reports and remit payments to ARC either manually or electronically using Interactive Agency Reporting (“IAR”).
ARC is the successor to ATA's (Air Traffic Association of America's) Air Traffic Conference and the administrators of the Standard Ticket and Area Settlement Plan, and continues to service the travel industry in accordance with the structure and principles first established in 1964 with the creation of the Area Settlement Plan. ARC seeks to be the preferred provider of high quality, technologically-advanced services related primarily to distribution and settlement of travel purchased in the United States on behalf of ARC's owner airlines, participating carriers, authorized travel agencies, and customers in the most secure, cost effective, and innovative manner. Historically, ARC traffic documents, or tickets have been the key to establishing the relationship among carriers, travel agents, and the public. The standardized ticket has provided a simple and efficient means for agents to sell travel on all participating carriers. Beginning in early 1995, ARC began to process and settle E-tickets (electronic tickets)issued by ARC-accredited travel agents through Computer Reservations Systems (“CRSs”), now also known as Global Reservations Systems (“GDSs”). The treatment accorded an electronic transaction by ARC is, for the most part, a mirror image of the function performed for the paper ticket, with accountability residing with the electronic record of a document number rather than a numbered paper document. E-tickets currently account for about half of all ARC-processed travel agent transactions, and their popularity is still rising.
ARC's most ambitious processing advancement was the January 1997 of IAR InteractivePlus. Travel agents electing to participate in IAR are able to complete their weekly sales reporting and settlement with ARC through electronic means rather than printing, mailing, and balancing a manual sales report. This electronic interaction is accomplished through links between agents, their Computer Reservation Systems (CRS) or a more recently introduced Internet link. ARC nightly downloads of sales information are edited through ARC's IAR system, and credit card transactions arc released for electronic billing. Travel agents receive daily confirmations of edited sales information, permitting the agents to release a fully edited sales report to ARC at the conclusion of the sales week. Because the travel agent does not release the report until the end of the sales week, however, a travel agent may void a ticket sale at no airline-fee cost to the passenger because the ARC or airlines will not know the ticket ever issued.
As agent use of the IAR system expands, significant benefits and savings are expected for agents, ARC, and participating carriers. However, the related art method illustrated in FIG. 1 is still practiced, so that travel agents may void tickets at the customer's request prior to the end of the current reporting period (i.e., one week).
Certain basic ticketing principles apply regardless of whether an airline ticket is issued manually or electronically, or is reported through IAR. Each time a travel agent issues a ticket or performs an electronic ticket transaction, the name of a validating carrier is designated on the transaction. ARC's processing centers can then identify the airline or travel agent to receive funds or commission for that ticket. Each week, every participating carrier receives one payment from ARC for all transportation sold for that carrier by every ARC agent in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This makes it difficult to have a reporting period shorter than one week.
Any airline is eligible to use ARC's services upon signing a Carrier Services Agreement and meeting the requirements contained therein. At the end of the second quarter of 2001, ARC had 37,317 accredited travel agency locations (travel agent retail and satellite ticket printer (STP) locations), 91 ARC accredited corporate travel departments (CTD), 134 participating air carriers, and 3 participating railroads.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional process of issuing a ticketing transaction involving a client wishing to change or cancel travel on a nonrefundable issued ticket. First, a customer calls a travel agent to purchase a ticket for air travel. (Step S1) Next, the agent makes a reservation for the customer. (Step S2) The customer then purchases the ticket from the agent (Step S3), and a paper or electronic ticket is issued to the purchaser. (Step S4)
The ticketed transaction is recorded in the GDS only for validating the reservation. (Step S5) Reporting cannot occur at this stage due to the format and information collected by the GDS, so airlines are not informed of the sale at the time of the sale.
If the end of the weekly reporting cycle has not been reached (Step S6), then the agent may void the ticket (Step S7) and the original sale of the ticket to the airline is never reported to the airline. Since the airline carrier was never aware of the sale, it cannot charge a change fee, resulting in a tremendous loss of potential revenue for the airlines.
If, however, the weekly reporting cycle has been reached (Step S6), then the travel agent reports sales, either electronically or manually, to ARC for the weekly sales summary of the sales generated during the previous week. (Step S8) This report is generated in batch on a weekly basis. Currently, reports are only generated in a weekly batch process, because of the requirements of small travel agents and the current process.
If a customer elects to change travel plans( e.g., cancel the trip, change dates of travel, etc.) the weekly sales report is generated (Step S9) at step S9, a customer may elect to exchange the existing ticket for a new ticket on the same airline. Then the travel agent performs the desired change and charges the customer the airline-imposed change fee. (Step S10) The process is then completed.
FIG. 2 illustrates a conventional system for performing an airline ticket transaction. This related art system comprises travel agents 3-1 . . . 3-N, one or more of which issue a ticket in response to a request by a customer (e.g., one of 4-1-1 . . . 4-1-J). ARC 2 is interposed between the travel agents 3-1 . . . 3-N and the airline 1. The travel agents 3-1 . . . 3-N report sales to ARC 2 in a batch format on a weekly basis. Under this system, the travel agents 3-1 . . . 3-N are able to void the ticket if the end of the weekly reporting cycle has not been reached. Therefore, this system also permits tremendous loss of revenue to the airlines due to voided or changed tickets.
FIG. 3 illustrates a conventional monitoring and enforcement system. The travel agents 3-1 . . . 3-N and the customers for each of the travel agents are situated substantially as in FIG. 2, but when the ticket sale is made, information on the ticket sale is reported to the GDS 5. The GDS 5 then reports all information on the ticket sale that is provided by the travel agent (e.g., 3-1) to ARC 2, and provides the airline 1 with a ticket number notification. Therefore, the airline does not receive any other sales information until the travel agent provides ARC 2 with the aforementioned weekly sales report, which is correspondingly submitted to the airline 1.
As a result, if customer 4-1-1 is issued a ticket by travel agent 3-1 and the sale is not reported to the airline 1 by ARC 2, the airline 1 does not become aware of the sale until it is discovered after the customer 4-1-1 has submitted the ticket to the airlines at the gate, and the ticket has been submitted to an accounting department of the airline 1. This pertains to situations where the ticket is issued and used before the weekly cycle ends. Thus, the airline 1 experiences a significant delay in collecting unreported ticket sales, due to the limited aforementioned monitoring and enforcement system, and as illustrated in FIG. 3.